Innovation fund to boost healthcare

27th September 2021 — How can emergency healthcare be reliably maintained in rural areas? How can healthcare services benefit an optimum of patients? How can medical treatment be successfully continued after a hospital stay or in a care facility? These are just three examples of challenges facing our health system. In order to find answers to these questions, the Federal Government created the Innovation Fund at the Federal Joint Committee (G-BA) in 2016, the highest decision-making body of the joint self-government of the medical profession, hospitals and health insurance funds in Germany. The Health Division at DLR-PT has accompanied this measure from the beginning.

In the meantime, the Innovation Fund has entered a second funding period and, for the second time, DLR-PT has also been commissioned to implement the funding measures. "With the renewed commissioning, DLR-PT has been able to assert itself with a convincing offer in terms of content," explains Dr Birgit Löer, Head of the Healthcare Department at DLR-PT.

Second commissioning, specific expertise

In the second funding period, funds amounting to 200 million euros are available each year until 2024. Of this, 160 million euros per year will be allocated to promoting new forms of healthcare, and 40 million euros per year will be earmarked for promoting health services research projects. From this year on, at least five million euros per year is to be spent on developing or upgrading medical guidelines, which, among other things, show doctors the options for decision-making and action and support them in treatment.

"In particular, the management of projects on new forms of care requires specific expertise. Because the remuneration systems of the statutory health insurance in Germany are complex, experience and expertise are needed to put the management on the right footing," explains Dr Birgit Löer. "Our expertise makes us a sought-after partner."

A wide portfolio of tasks, comprehensive advice

Thanks to its staff's knowledge of clinical research, health services research and funding management, DLR-PT's services cover the entire portfolio of tasks ranging from preparing the content of the funding announcement and the funding decision to the technical and administrative support of the individual projects and the final evaluation of the project results. In the first funding period of the Innovation Fund, 30 funding announcements had already been published, DLR-PT staff had conducted 8,000 consultations with potential funding applicants via the central telephone hotline and in web seminars, and they had prepared more than 1,500 outlines and applications for the selection process.

"By the end of 2020, a total of 441 projects with 2,249 project partners and a total volume of around 1.23 billion euros had been selected for funding," Löer sums up. "These impressive figures also reflect the special expertise and commitment of our staff." The contract that has now been awarded is currently being supervised by 30 employees and will run for three years.